A Simple Template To Use To Crank Out Quality Articles At Record Speeds

So you want to give your audience as many articles as possible but want to ensure they are high quality, right? You want to be a prolific writer (only way to make a mark when starting out) but you also want to make sure that you’re not just rambling and actually giving you audience quality content. No problem. While you would think the two might be mutually exclusive when you use a few hacks it becomes a lot easier. No need to choose between being a prolific writer and being a good one. And as a matter of fact the two feed into each other anyways.

One way to make this much easier on yourself is to have a template that you can use to plug and play your information that you want to share. That way you can crank out more articles at record speed while also being sure that they are going to be informative and helpful articles that are going to give value to your readers and improve their lives in some way, shape, or form. Which is the ultimate goal anyways. Remember even if money was your only concern you’re number one goal would still be to help others. Also blogging wouldn’t be your best bet.

The Problem

When I first started writing this blog I looked around to see what the average article output of other writers was (a mistake, as measuring yourself as the average will always get you at best average results) and it seemed to be about one a week. I thought alright one a week I can do that no problem. But then I thought is one a week really enough to grow an audience, get attention, and make a name for myself? Because I looked around and saw many bloggers some who had been at it for years with little to nothing to show for it. While I admired their persistence I had no desire to be one of them.

So I started looking at what the successful bloggers did that I wasn’t noticing. Because truth be told one article a week wasn’t cutting it for the majority of blogs. I leaned about the importance of headlines and copywriting. While 3 Ways To X and How To Y should be the basis for the majority of articles and things of that nature. I also learned that you need to focus on providing valuable information to the reader over opinion pieces and pieces that simply drone on about your life. No one wants to read that shit, provide value or shutup. It’s that simple.

The Solution

It was about that time that I discovered that those who have the most success are those who are taking the most action. So I decided alright if the average person is writing a post a week then I’ll do 5x that, I’ll write a post Monday through Friday. And so I did I discovered that at first it was hard coming up with that much good information even though I had a very deep base to pull from. So I went out in search of a template that the big bloggers used to pump out quality information at a high rate. I found quite a range of different templates so some vague that it might as well have said “Write good stuff” and other so complicated they looked like blueprints to the most advanced machine ever made.

But like Goldilocks I finally found one that was “just right”. I don’t remember where I got it from as I came across it in old notes a short time ago but I believe it was from Michael Hyatt the author of Platform (must read for anyone wanting to build an audience). This template allowed me to write an article a day which I then expanded to 2x a day for 10 articles a week. I don’t use it anymore as I pretty much have it internalized but without it I wouldn’t be nearly as prolific as I am now which would hinder me helping as many people as possible and getting my message out there at such a high rate.

The Template

Alright so now what you’ve all been waiting for the template. Here’s how it goes.

First Step – Write out the topic and the headline. So for example I’d write out “losing weight for summer” as the topic and “5 Ways To Get Slim Before Summer” as the title. I usually use either a variant of “How To X” or “3, 5, or 7 ways to Y” (odd numbers have better conversion than even for whatever odd reason). I also make sure that my topic is something that is going to interest at least some segment of my blog.

Second Step – Make bulleted list of points I want to make. So for the “5 Ways To Get Slim Before Summer” one I’d have 5 bullet points down on a piece of paper or in WordPress. So for example I might have do cardio, cut out carbs, cut out sugar, fasting, and supplements to take as my 5 points. I’m not going in depth yet just writing out the major points that I want to make sure my readers come away with at the end of the article.

Final Step – Flesh out the bulleted points. Then what I do is I write two more bullets under the main bulleted points. So for example for the do cardio bullet I might write under it HIIT and barbell complexes which would be two types of cardio I would recommend for slimming down for summer. I would then proceed to do that for the rest of the points as well. Then when I started writing I would have jumping off points for every paragraph. You’ve probably noticed that I generally write two paragraphs per headline, this is why.

Summary

So now you have an article template that you can use to crank out quality articles that are going to be informative and helpful to your audience at a high rate. Which is what matters. If you want to make a living from your blog you’ll have to treat it differently from others. One key to doing this is proliferation of content. Think about this the more content you have the more chances someone has to find your blog and have their life positively impacted because of it. Who knows what article will bring a certain person in and change their life. If you have something valuable to share then it’s your duty to share it with your audience. Use this template to do so.

If you have any questions you would like to see answered in a future post send them to me at charlessledge001 (at) gmail (dot) com. If you found value in this post then I would encourage you to share this site with someone who may need it as well as check out my books here. I appreciate it. You can follow me on Twitter here.

-Charles Sledge

Charles Sledge